At age 37, Hope Hartman developed a painful, burning rash in her right ear, in the part “you would clean with a Q-tip,” the Denver resident says. The pain got so bad she went to a local emergency room, where the staff was flummoxed. Hartman was admitted to the hospital, where she started to lose sensation on the right side of her face.

Like seismic sensors planted in quiet ground, hundreds of tiny electrodes rested in the outer layer of the 44-year-old woman’s brain. These sensors, each slightly larger than a sesame seed, had been implanted under her skull to listen for the first rumblings of epileptic seizures.

The electrodes gave researchers unprecedented access to the patient’s brain. With the woman’s permission,...

In the supplement world, vitamin D is a bit like a Kardashian. Its fame seemed to come out of nowhere about a decade ago, garnering so much press so fast that it’s hard to remember a time when people weren’t talking about it.

Vitamin D had long been known for protecting bones, but its star began to rise in the early 2000s after researchers made connections hinting that vitamin D was good...

Cholesterol-lowering drugs may one day gain a sidekick in the battle against heart disease. Taking a potent drug derived from fish oil along with a statin lowers the risk of heart attack and stroke in some high-risk people, researchers report.

A clinical trial called REDUCE-IT tested the approach in more than 8,000 participants who either had cardiovascular disease or were at high risk...

CHICAGO — Taking a vitamin D supplement does not reduce the risk of having a potentially fatal heart attack or stroke or for getting an invasive cancer, according to highly anticipated results of a large clinical trial.

The VITAL trial found no significant difference in cancer or heart health risk between people taking 2,000 international units, or IU, of vitamin D a day and those who...

Gonorrhea is a wily foe. But doctors may soon have another drug to fight the sexually transmitted infection that’s become resistant to nearly every antibiotic thrown its way. In clinical trials, a new antibiotic was effective at stopping the bacteria that causes the disease.

A single oral dose of the drug, called zoliflodacin, cured 96 percent of people who had gonorrhea infections in...

Trent Jackson’s life changed abruptly in early 2015. The computer engineer thought he had the flu. His then-wife, Donna Sylvia, thought differently. His skin was turning a dark golden yellow, almost brown, “like he was getting some kind of weird tan,” she says. On Wednesday, January 28, Sylvia and Jackson’s brother Todd finally persuaded Jackson to see a doctor.

For years, scientists have struggled to find a therapy that works for most cystic fibrosis sufferers. Now, two new triple-drug approaches, still undergoing testing, are offering hope.

Cystic fibrosis is caused by mutations in a gene called CFTR. These mutations mean the body either makes defective versions of a protein, also called CFTR, or none of the protein at all. The new therapies...

A new tuberculosis vaccine shows promise in preventing the bacteria from causing disease in people who are infected, but aren’t sick. If approved, it could help control the spread of a disease considered one of the world’s top killers, responsible for 1.6 million deaths in 2017, according to the World Health Organization.

A daily dose of aspirin? Not a good idea if you’re a healthy elderly adult.

A trio of papers based on a large-scale clinical trial finds that the drug doesn’t help to stave off heart attacks, strokes, dementia or physical disability. In fact, those in their golden years who took a low dose of aspirin daily were more likely to suffer serious internal bleeding than those who took a placebo...